Tracy's New Batting Order

Jim Tracy has removed Jack Wilson from the lineup tonight which is a strong indication something is wrong with Jack. All we can do is hope it is minor and we see him on Saturday.

In Jack's place, Tracy bats Jose Hernandez and leads off with Nate McLouth. To his credit, Jose has hit Eric Milton very well in his career. The problem is, most of those at bats were prior to 2004.

Anyways, let's take a strong look at the fundamental building blocks of how a batting order should be built. To do that, I'm going to reference Mark Pankin's much hearlded article he wrote for SABR entitled "Finding Better Batting Orders".

Pankin's research led him to build a batting order model that is widely used by MLB teams today -- not that it was Pankin's idea, mind you, just that as Markov found, certain outcomes can be expected from certain events and in certain orders. Here is his model showing just the best five variables for each lineup position, in order of importance:

As an example, a manager needs to construct his lineup with his best on base average player leading off, as evidenced by the +OBA in column 1/1 above. If the manager has more than one player with that skill, or doesn't have one at all, the next variable he should consider would be the ability to get a high amount of walks per plate appearance (cell 2/1 above).

Now, considering tonight's early published lineup of McLouth, Hernandez, Casey, Bay, and Burnitz as the first five batters. Which of the five variables fit Jose Hernandez to bat in the two hole? His stats last 3: .252/.318/.413, a 31% K-rate, a 7.7% extra base hit rate (which is a tad low), and a very low walk rate. None - that is right.

That doesn't mean he won't do well - that just means that, based on historical trends, he shouldn't do well. Based on his previous three years stats, the 8 slot is probably where Jose should be batting.

How about Nate McLouth leading off? His farm stats (.367 OBP over 5 years in the farm system) tend to suggest he might be capable of leading off as a high OBA guy, but he only racked up .305 OBP in 2005 in 109 AB and his first attempt this year was about as fruitless, albeit he did get one hit but just as quickly removed himself with poor running.

So who is our best on base average player? Yep, Sean Casey. He should bat leadoff. Who is a decent slugger with a high on base average? McLouth or Randa? One of them should bat second then so let's take McLouth. Who has a high slugging and gets a lot of walks? Bay? Burnitz? Hmm.. which to choose.

The fourth slot requirement is high slugging and high on base average and and the fifth slot needs high slugging and high home runs. The five hole fits Burnitz better, the four hole fits Bay best, so that still leaves the three slot open. Who do we have left? Castillo, Randa, and Doumit/Cota. Because the third variable in the three hole is the ability to put the ball in play, Randa fills that best so Randa should bat third, Castillo sixth because of the need for slugging, and Doumit/Cota bat seventh leaving Hernandez to bat eighth.

In a perfect world, and based on Markov and Pankin, our batting order tonight should be:

Casey, McLouth, Randa, Bay, Burnitz, Castillo, Doumit/Cota, Hernandez.

Tracy refuses to budge with Casey batting third. That is understandable but inexcusable, in my opinion. Now, we'll watch the game and see what transpires based on Tracy's lineup, all the while thinking about what might have been if we had the ability to make out the lineup card. And, of course, now that we brought all this up, watch them score 20 runs. Baseball - gotta love it.